Sucker Punch

3/20/13 - 5/19/13

WRITTEN BY ROY WILLIAMS
US PREMIERE
DIRECTED BY LEAH C. GARDINER

When Leon and Troy are caught breaking in to a north London boxing gym, the owner puts the aspiring black boxers to work rather than turning them over to the police. When race riots erupt in the neighborhood, a split-second betrayal changes both boys’ lives. From the north London streets to the World Championship, the two former friends must ultimately step into the ring and face who they’ve become—champions or sell outs?

Kinetic, comedic, and emotionally bruising, Williams’s masterwork blasts open the experience of being young, black, and ambitious in 1980s London.

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Play Name

Studio Theatre’s 2011-2012 Season was generously underwritten by Robert and Arlene Kogod.

Underwriting for the International Plays of the 2011-2012 Season was provided by an anonymous donor.

This production of Sucker Punch was underwritten by Lizbeth J. Dobbins, Stan and Rosemary Marcuss, and The National Endowment for the Arts.

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The Artists

Cast

Production Team

FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHER

Rick Sordelet

Rick Sordelet has worked on 53 Broadway productions, which include The Scottsboro Boys  and Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, Tarzan and Aida. His New York credits include Blood Knot, Hurt Village, and The Lady from Dubuque at Signature Theatre; Carrie the musical at MCC;  and Merrily We Roll Along for Encores. He has worked on the national tours of Beauty and the Beast and Les Miserables.  Mr. Sordelet has choreographed 52 commercial productions around the world, including Tarzan, Aida, Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Titanic, and Ben Hur Live.  His opera work includes Cyrano at the Metropolitan Opera, The Royal Opera House and La Scalla; Don Carlo at the Metropolitan Opera; and Heart of a Soldier at the San Francisco Opera House. His film work includes The Game Plan, Dan in Real Life, and Hamlet with Campbell Scott. Mr. Sordelet was the Chief Stunt Coordinator for Guiding Light for 12 years, and also worked on One Life to Live. He won the Edith Oliver Award for Sustained Excellence from the Lucille Lortel Foundation and a Jeff Award for best fight choreography for Romeo and Juliet at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. A board member for the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Mr. Sordelet has taught at Yale School of Drama and The New School for Drama. He holds a BFA from University of Wisconsin-Superior and an MFA from Rutgers University.

(As of March 2012)

SET DESIGNER

Daniel Conway

Daniel Conway has designed more than two dozen plays for Studio Theatre including Three Sisters and No Sisters, The Aliens, and his Helen Hayes Award-winning design for Hand to God. His recent work on Macbeth for Chicago Shakespeare Theater and The Scottsboro Boys for Signature Theatre was featured in the 2019 Prague Quadrennial of World Stage Design and Performance Art. He is currently designing Singin’ in the Rain for Olney Theatre Center. Other regional credits include work for Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, The Cleveland Play House, Shakespeare Theatre Company, South Coast Rep, Milwaukee Rep, A.R.T., The Kennedy Center, and Boston Lyric Opera.  Daniel is the designer for the performance artists/magicians Penn and Teller. Awards include 14 Helen Hayes nominations and four awards for Outstanding Set Design, nominations for the Los Angeles and Boston Critics Awards, and The Anderson-Hopkins Award for Sustained Contributions to Theatre in Washington DC.

(As of August 2019)

LIGHTING DESIGNER

Brian MacDevitt

Brian MacDevitt directed Between Riverside and Crazy for Studio Theatre, where he designed lighting for Sucker Punch and The Real Thing, and he served as the Production Designer for Murder Ballad. His recent directing credits include Proof at Theater Three in New York and Spring Awakening at The Clarice Smith Center. Other directing credits include Joyce Soho and readings at New York Stage and Film and Naked Angels. He has designed lighting for close to 70 shows on Broadway, including Larry David’s A Fish in the Dark, A Delicate Balance with Glenn Close, and This is Our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan. Other Broadway credits include Death of a Salesman starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and directed by Mike Nichols; The Book of Mormon (Tony Award), The Coast of Utopia, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Fences, A Behanding in Spokane, Race, The Pillowman, Urinetown, and Into the Woods. He is the recipient of five Tony Awards, an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence, a Bessie Award, Lucille Lortel Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, the Hewes Award, and a Drama Desk Award. He designed lights for dance productions with The Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theater, Tere O’Connor Dance, Merce Cunningham, Lar Lubovitch, Nancy Bannon, and many others. His designs for the Metropolitan Opera include The Enchanted Island, Le Compte Ory, and Doctor Atomic.  He is on the faculty of University of Maryland and is a member of the Naked Angels Theater Company.

(As of April 2015)

COSTUME DESIGNER

Kathleen Geldard

Kathleen Geldard returns to Studio Theatre after designing Cry It Out, Curve of Departure, Animal, Choir Boy, Jumpers for Goalposts, Tribes, and Invisible Man. Other recent regional credits include Macbeth at Shakespeare Theatre Company; Misery and Shakespeare in Love at Cincinnati Playhouse; and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime; and Humana Festivals 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Other regional credits include Arena Stage, Portland Center Stage, Huntington Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Signature Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Florida Studio Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, The Kennedy Center, Round House Theatre, Imagination Stage, and Folger Theatre. She is an artistic associate for Signature Theatre.

(As of January 2019)

SOUND DESIGNER

Lindsay Jones

Lindsay Jones is pleased to return to Studio Theatre, where he also designed sound for Sucker Punch. His Off Broadway credits include Mr. Joy at LCT3, Rx at Primary Stages, Through the Night at Union Square Theatre, Wild With Happy at the Public Theater, The Burnt Part Boys at Playwrights Horizons, and Top Secret at New York Theatre Workshop, among many others. His regional credits include shows at the Guthrie Theatre, Centerstage, Goodman Theatre, Alley Theatre, Arena Stage, The Old Globe, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and many others. Internationally, Mr. Jones has worked at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada and the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, as well as on productions in Austria, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Scotland. Mr. Jones has received six Joseph Jefferson Awards and 16 nominations, two Ovation Awards and three nominations, an LA Drama Critics Circle Award, and two Drama Desk Award nominations. His original film scoring includes HBO Films’ A Note Of Triumph (2006 Academy Award for Best Documentary) and The Brass Teapot for Magnolia Pictures.

(As of March 2013)

DRAMATURG

Adrien-Alice Hansel

Adrien-Alice Hansel is the Literary Director at Studio, where she has dramaturged the world premieres of I Hate it Here, Queen of Basel, The Remains, No Sisters, I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart, Animal, Red Speedo, Dirt, Lungs, and The History of Kisses as well as productions of Flow, 2.5 Minute Ride, Until the Flood, Cry It Out, Translations, Curve of Departure, The Effect, Wig Out!, Straight White Men, Cloud 9, Hedda Gabler, Jumpers for Goalposts, Bad Jews (twice), The Apple Family Plays, Invisible Man, Sucker Punch, The Golden Dragon, and The New Electric Ballroom, among others. Prior to joining Studio, she spent eight seasons at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, where she headed the literary department and coordinated project scouting, selection, and development for the Humana Festival of New American Plays. She is the co-editor of eight anthologies of plays from Actors Theatre and editor of 10 editions of plays through Studio. Adrien-Alice holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

(As of May 2021)

VOICE AND TEXT DIRECTOR

Ashley Smith

Ashley Smith returns to Studio Theatre, having served as Voice and Text Director for Sucker Punch. He recently served as Dialect Coach for Everyman Theatre's production of Crimes of the Heart and Woolly Mammoth Theatre's production of Appropriate. Mr. Smith has directed voice, text, and dialects for Bus Stop and The Rivals at Baltimore Center Stage; Exits and Entrances and The Circle at American Players Theatre; The Good Negro for Dallas Theater Center and The Public Theater; and the Chicago premiere of My Children! My Africa! at Victory Gardens Theatre. As an actor, Mr. Smith recently appeared on AMC's new dramatic series Turn. Other recent television credits include The Art and Life of James McNeill Whistler (PBS). Recent stage credits include All's Well that Ends Well and Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare Theatre Company. He has performed principal roles for Utah Shakespeare Festival (four seasons), Great Lakes Theatre Festival, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Dallas Theater Center, and Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre in New York. Mr. Smith teaches voice and acting in the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of Maryland.

(As of May 2014)

BOXING CONSULTANT

Gary "the Kid" Stark, Jr.

Gary “the Kid” Stark, Jr. is a former New York Super Bantamweight champion. In his amateur career he was a three-time Golden Gloves champion, rated fifth in the country by USA boxing. Since turning pro in 2002, his record is 23-3 with eight knockouts.

(As of March 2012)

PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER

John Keith Hall

John Keith Hall's DC credits include many productions at Studio Theatre including Bad Jews, Choir Boy, Water by the Spoonful, Tribes, Torch Song Trilogy, 4000 Miles, Sucker Punch, In The Red And Brown Water, The History Boys, Adding Machine: A Musical, and The Road To Mecca; Hir, The Nether, and An Octoroon at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company; Soon, SCKBSTD, and West Side Story at Signature Theatre; Sweeney Todd, Mary Poppins, and The Producers at Olney Theatre Center.  Regional credits include several seasons as a Resident Stage Manager at The Barter Theatre in Virginia where he supervised over 40 productions, Shadowland Stages in New York, and Virginia Musical Theatre in Virginia Beach. A graduate of Virginia’s Longwood University, Mr. Hall is a proud member of the Actors’ Equity Association.

(As of September 2017)

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Jamila Reddy

Jamila Reddy is the Artistic Apprentice at The Studio Theatre, and is thrilled to be working on Bachelorette. At The Studio Theatre, she served as assistant director on Sucker Punch, Time Stands Still, The Golden Dragon, and The Habit of Art. She is an alumna of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she received a BA in both Dramatic Art and Sociology. She directed several productions at the undergraduate level, including the premiere of Kind of Blue, an original play by Kuamel Winston Stewart, and Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. For her contributions to the Department of Dramatic Art at UNC, Jamila received the Richard and Christopher Edward Adler Award for Excellence in Dramatic Art (2010) and the Louise Lamont Award for Excellence (2011).

(As of May 2012)

ASSISTANT FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHER

Jamila Reddy

Christian Kelly-Sordelet has been doing combat work since he was a child. His work includes Masked at DR2 Theater in New York. His assistant work includes Fuerza Bruta in New York, Ben Hur Live in Rome, and the international tour of Beauty and the Beast. Mr. Kelly-Sordelet’s work was seen on TV in Guiding Light and One Life to Live. He has taught at several universities including Rutgers, NYU, The New School of Drama and the Neighborhood Playhouse Conservatory.

(As of March 2012)

Press

Packs a might wallop...riveting
THE WASHINGTON POST
Compelling, thought-provoking, not-to-be-missed
WNEW

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